


Counting Backwards

by Pi (Rhea)



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Dream Sex, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 20:37:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4451492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/pseuds/Pi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The evening has the kind of feeling that wants noise: a song, a whistle, lowly confessed secrets. Ronan has too many of the latter and she never has mastered more than two notes of a whistle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting Backwards

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to rivers_bend for being an excellent beta (and made of magic and great ideas)! All remaining mistakes are my own.

Ronan runs a hand over the prickle of her buzzed hair. Her other hand is still clutched loosely around the beer bottle sweating against her fingers. The thick heat of the Henrietta summer hasn’t been cut by the descent of twilight, and Ronan can feel where the fabric of her tank top is clinging to her skin with sweat. She’s sitting on the steps of Monmoth watching fireflies flicker at the edges of the gravel lot. The sky above never delivered the afternoon’s thunderstorm and the clouds are slinking sulkily to the edges of the sky. When the green fades, Ronan knows the splash of milky way will open above her. Gansey’d said there’d be a meteor shower tonight, but so far he and Blue haven’t arrived. Noah’s probably somewhere inside Monmoth, but there’s no light or sound from inside to bely the idea that the place is indeed abandoned. Ronan rests back on her elbows and lets the bottle clink lightly against the step to rest on its own, outside the cage of her hand. 

The evening has the kind of feeling that wants noise: a song, a whistle, lowly confessed secrets. Ronan has too many of the latter and she never has mastered more than two notes of a whistle. Her voice is nothing to write home about, but alone with the gravel lot, and the dark hulk of Monmoth behind her, Ronan hums a few notes. The fireflies seem to flash a syncopated response. Ronan closes her eyes.

The crunch of tires and the rattle of an engine jar Ronan. She’d moved all the way to full throated words, convinced of her solitude behind the shield of her eyelids. Gansey throws the door open and Ronan knows he’s been driving with the windows down, too hot to do otherwise. She hopes the noise of the Pig drowned out any sound of her own throat.   
“Ronan!” Gansey calls, Blue in one of her modified, layered t-shirts and Adam in her beat up jeans and fitted t-shirt emerging from the car behind him. “Seen any stars yet?” Ronan raises a sardonic eyebrow and points up.  
“Sure, lots of them.”   
Gansey pops the trunk and pulls out a thick wad of blanket. It’s hard to tell the color in the growing night, but Ronan would hazard a guess it’s various shades of light and dark blue, possibly paisley. 

Gansey strides across the crunch of gravel to spread out the blanket at the edge of the lot, over the scrubby grass there. Blue plops down beside him once Gansey has chosen his corner of the blanket, and Adam hovers by them, seeming unsure of the blanket as a suitable place to sit.  
“Are you going to join us?” Gansey calls. Ronan sighs and snags up the bottle. Gansey gives it a pointed look when she claims the far corner of the blanket. Holding Gansey’s eyes, Ronan takes a long pull from the bottle and doesn’t say anything. Adam folds herself down toward the center of the blanket, the hub of a wheel with spokes going out to Blue, Gansey, and Ronan around the edges.   
“Where’s Noah?” she asks. Ronan shrugs.  
“Somewhere, probably.”   
Adam frowns. 

They all look up at the sky. Ronan pulls a little at the hem of her tank top, flapping it to get a rush of air over her damp skin. The shirt gapes a bit at the chest; she doesn’t pull too hard lest Gansey squawk over getting an eyeful. Ronan hasn’t bothered to put on a bra since she got back from school. It’s too hot to bother, and her normally overly perky nipples are more than tamed by the sticky heat anyway. Continuously craning up hurts Ronan’s neck, so she flops down on the blanket, making a spoke of her body, pleased when Adam doesn’t shove off Ronan’s foot where it hits her knee. From where her head is propped on her arms, Ronan can tip her chin down and catch the golden edging of flashlight illumination contouring the edges of Adam’s face.   
“Why the fuck’d you bring a flashlight for a meteor shower, Gansey.” Ronan asks, “you’re not going to be able to see anything if you don’t let your eyes adjust.” Gansey clicks the flashlight out. 

They watch the sky until Ronan’s eyelids have started to fight against her wakefulness. Gansey and Blue have both spread themselves out across the far corner of the blanket, heads together so they can point to the same stars. Adam is still sitting though. She opens and closes like a night blooming flower, first spine arced and head falling to the uncomfortable draw of gravity, leaning on her hands to look up at the sky, then curling forward, balancing out the strain on her spine by curling her arms around her knees, head falling back down towards her feet. It’s the third time she’s done this and neither Gansey nor Blue have said anything. Ronan kicks her foot gently against Adam’s calf.   
“Hey.” Ronan says. Adam untucks her chin from her chest and peers up from between her knees owl-like.   
“Yes, we probably should go to bed.” Gansey sighs. The flashlight scours the blanket with light.   
“Doesn’t your watch have glow in the dark arms or something?” Ronan growls.  
“The glow goes away without light to recharge.” Gansey explains. “It’s past 2am.” Ronan huffs a breath. Blue is already pushing to her feet, straightening her skirt and tucking her feet back into her shoes.   
“I’ll drive you home.” Gansey says. Blue’s mouth curls but she doesn’t voice her objection. Ronan stares up at the stars, Adam’s dark form blending with the darkness in her peripheral vision. 

Red taillights drench Adam’s hair with color while the Pig coughs and slowly crunches gravel, like Gansey is trying to roll out of the lot quietly so as not to wake Noah, who never did come outside to join them. Ronan rolls her head slightly so Adam is more fully in her field of vision. Adam’s looking up at the stars again, but this time she’s slumped back on her elbows, one good shove from laying down. This late at night it’s the kind of dark where anything stared at too long gets eaten by shadows. Ronan blinks hard and looks back up, better to see the stars wink out instead.   
“Did you make any wishes?” Adam asks. Ronan scoffs a little. Ronan Lynch can dream the things other people wish for. Ronan’s wishes are all more prickly and complex than can be entrusted to stars. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t say them quietly in the back of her head.   
“Sometimes.” Ronan answers. Ronan doesn’t ask what Adam wished. There are too many answers she wouldn’t want to hear. 

Ronan would have thought Adam’d be gone by the time the Pig’s lights disrupt the night for a second time. Instead, Adam is yawning and stretching out her spine — Ronan can hear the sharp cracks of vertebrae realigning — when Gansey shuts the driver’s side door. Adam tugs the edge of the blanket, now ready to be done for the night. Ronan lets the fabric roll her off onto the grass. There’s dirt beneath her cheek, but gravel from the edge of the drive bites into her forearm. Ronan lays there as Adam and Gansey carefully fold up the blanket, matching sides and passing it between them as the square folds down smaller and smaller before being tucked away in the trunk. Ronan stands and grabs the empty beer bottle from where it’s rolled away in the grass. 

There are a lot of things Ronan doesn’t dream about. Normal anxiety dreams that others complain about, archetypal dreams found in dream divination books that Ronan has never experienced, but like a lot of other people, Ronan does dream about sex. Sometimes Ronan dreams about people she doesn’t know, faces so familiar she knows the weight of their emotional importance, but whose hair and eyes become a strangers on the reflection of waking. The night after the meteor shower, though, Ronan dreams about Adam. 

Adam is a familiar set of lips, the angle of her shoulders part memory and part fiction under Ronan’s fingers. The press of Adam’s fingers tight against her own isn’t the echo of any wish Ronan found the star words for. Ronan dreams the warm light of Adam’s small room at St. Agnes’. Adam has shucked her shirt and the petal pink of her bra strap catches under Ronan’s fingers while Adam presses kisses down Ronan’s neck. The ceiling of Adam’s room is missing and the bright spill of the Milky Way takes its place. It is brighter than Ronan’s ever seen it, even in the night views from farmland and mountains in the miles and miles of empty road surrounding Henrietta. Ronan turns her face into Adam’s hair and the smell is familiar, sweet like burnt sugar and over that the tang of motor oil. Ronan’s hands pluck Adam’s bra strap free and release her shoulders. 

Seeing the pale slopes of Adam’s breasts, Ronan knows it’s a dream. Ronan reaches out and runs one finger over the fading red indent from Adam’s underwire. The reality of skin under her fingertips clashes with the sudden awareness that none of this can be real. Adam’s smile is wide and bright when she surges forward to capture Ronan’s lips with her own, as if Ronan’s brain is doing its best to distract from the unreality of the dream. Ronan kisses back, lets the clarity of Adam’s teeth on her lower lip wash the rest of the dream into hazy color. St Agnes might still be around them, but beneath them is Gansey’s blue and paisley blanket. Ronan’s tank top is lost somewhere and Adam’s fingers are wrenching open the buttons on her pants. Ronan doesn’t get to see Adam’s panties because they’re lost with her pants, and a very naked Adam requires all of Ronan’s attention. 

Ronan can count on two hands the number of times she’s seen dream Adam naked. They are always the kind of dreams Ronan remembers weeks afterward in precise detail. Ronan remembers the delight of skin against skin from other partners, but in dreams this electricity is always Adam. The wiry hairs on Adam’s inner thighs, the neatly trimmed edges of Adam’s nails, and the soft skin of Adam’s neck are tactile sensations branded into Ronan’s body. Adam’s fingers trace over Ronan’s shoulder blades. Without looking, this Adam can follow every curve and swirl of Ronan’s tattoo, trailing ever lower over Ronan’s back. It’s another thing Adam shouldn’t know. Ronan swallows and kisses Adam to distraction. If they were laying down, they’re now standing, or perhaps it was always both, but Adam’s thigh presses between Ronan’s own, bearing her back against the wall. At first Ronan thinks it’s Monmoth, gritty and splintered against her shoulders, but then the curvature of wood tells her it’s a tree. Ronan doesn’t look beyond Adam to see where they are, keeping the world blurred out of focus beyond Adam’s face. Adam gasps into Ronan’s mouth, hips bucking. Ronan soaks in the breathy little sounds, tries to quiet her own to hear them better. 

Adam sucks kisses into Ronan’s neck. Ronan imagines bringing the hickies back with her, dream impressions of Adam’s lips. She wouldn’t be able to explain it to Gansey. Ronan pushes Adam away.   
“Let me.” Ronan says. Adam nods, watches steadily while Ronan kneels down, shouldering between Adam’s legs. Ronan can feel the muscles of Adam’s stomach jump a little at the first brush from her nose. Ronan doesn’t fight back the curve of a smile. She inhales lower, the scent her mind conjures for Adam here, sharp, musky, and instantly recognizable as sex. Adam makes no sound at the first swipe of Ronan’s tongue, but her hips cant further forward into Ronan’s hard grip. Ronan proceeds to take her apart, tongue flat and firm, then flickering pointedly. Adam’s breath is hitching regularly, her legs trembling. Ronan’s chin is wet when she looks up to catch Adam’s eye. 

Adam cranes her neck off the pillows meeting Ronan’s gaze with a pleading smile. Ronan shifts her weight on the bed, happy for the better comfort of their new surroundings. She holds up a finger and Adam nods frantically. Ronan grins and crooks the finger in, riding the lift and dip of Adam's hips as she sighs. Ronan goes back to work with her tongue before adding a second finger. In the dream, Ronan’s tongue doesn’t get tired, her neck doesn’t get sore. She tastes Adam all around her, overwhelmed in the comfort of smell and touch, grounded to the reality of Adam’s skin. Adam’s breath turns to an intermittent whine, and she tosses her head against the pillows, tucking her face away as if to hide from something. Ronan presses deeper, curls her tongue and watches Adam’s body writhe. Ronan doesn’t stop until the wet ripples of Adam’s muscles around her fingers subside with the quieting of her hips, and Adam bats at Ronan’s head. Ronan slides her fingers free, and sits up on her elbows, grinning to say something to Adam’s flushed face. 

Ronan opens her eyes to the dark wall of her room in Monmoth. She curses, skin still heated and aching from arousal. Dreams where she doesn’t get to come are the worst. Ronan sighs and brings a hand up to rub her eyes. Her fingers slide wetly over her eyebrow. Ronan stills, catching the faint waft of scent in the silent room. It clenches something tight in Ronan’s abdomen, almost like a spark of pain. Ronan inhales shakily, staring at the fragile outline of her fingers in the dark. There is absolutely no way she’s getting back to sleep, not this turned on. With a growl of frustration Ronan rolls over. She stabs the offending fingers into her mouth, flavor tangy and familiar on her tongue, and grinds down hard on her other hand. In moments, her muscles are strung tight, wrist aching from the pressure and awkward angle, back molars clenching around one finger tip involuntarily until she jerks her hand from her mouth. Her fingers smell like spit, and the bowl of her hips floods with the white-out wash of sensation. Ronan’s arms give out and her face smashes down into her pillow. She pants hot into the fabric, the tight knot in her abdomen clenched like a fist while the rest of her muscles weakly refuse to support her bones. Ronan turns her head far enough to see the dark bars of Chainsaw's cage in the corner. Chainsaw is absent, but there’s no sound from her riffling through the room. Monmoth is silent. Outside the window one of the first morning birds sings a few lines. Ronan hates this time of day the most. Cursing, she firmly shuts her eyes and begins counting backwards from two hundered and fifty-six by fives.


End file.
